My namesake National Park, Lake Clark, was next on this adventure! This is one of the parks you have to fly into. There are no roads in or to this park. It is an undeveloped area full of lakes, streams, volcanos, rivers, mountains, and it includes the headwaters for the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery; making it a haven for fishers. We flew to this park with Lake & Pen Air from their small office near the main airport. It…
Next up on the Alaskan adventure, we headed to Kenai Fjords National Park after our time in Denali. Over half of Kenai Fjords is covered by glaciers; together all called the Harding Icefield, which is why the park itself is primarily experienced on the water. From Denali and Anchorage, Seward is only a couple hours away on a beautiful coastal highway. Seward, the park headquarters, is a cute port town that is bustling with tourists. We got to enjoy this…
After my disappointing experience with the Arctic Parks, Mike and I headed to the crown jewel of Alaska; Denali National Park. We arrived late morning, so we grabbed my Junior Ranger booklet, talked to the rangers, and made a game plan.We’ve been walking the fine line of spontaneity and still getting tickets/reservations/etc. Sometimes it bites us in the butt, but we got veryyyy lucky and were able to reserve the very last campsite for the following evening at Wonder Lake…
From Wrangell St Elias, we headed up north to check out the Arctic parks; Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley. The first thing you should know about these parks… they are ridiculously hard to get to. For both parks, the majority of people fly into the parks. And most of those people just do a flightseeing tour and that’s about it. It is so so so expensive. Gates of the Arctic was a tiny bit easier for us to…
After an extremely long drive from Washington, through Canada, with many $100+ gas fill ups, new tires, and more…. we made it to Alaska! We tried to visit Glacier Bay first, but we found out that the ferry to the park was booked for more than a week. So, we headed up another 15 or so hours up to the largest National Park in the United States… Wrangell-St. Elias! This park is 13 million acres; larger than the 6 smallest…
After dropping Ry off at his hostel in Portland, we headed up to Washington; Mike on his bike, me in the car. We had plans to go to Bellingham, as that’s where my friend’s, Beth and Lauren, live. They are going to watch Luca for us while we go to Alaska (I’m already crying about leaving him). We decided to check out North Cascades National Park before heading over to their house since it wasn’t too far. Like most parks,…
After a long drive that felt surprisingly short, we made it to Port Orford, Oregon to watch Ry finish the American Trail Race. We were watching his tracker and made it along the trail to cheer him on. We didn’t have service where we were at, so we just hung out awhile and enjoyed the nature… and wine. I found an amazing bottle of wine at a local store that has it divided into four glasses already! It was amazingggg. …
After Yellowstone, we headed towards Glacier National Park! I was super excited for this park; I had heard so many wonderful things from everyone and I had never been here. First though, we stopped in the town of Bozeman and got our life together again i.e. we showered. We continued along the way and slept outside of the park. Okay, it was in a Montana saloon, Trixi’s, parking lot, don’t judge us. When we asked the bartender if it would…
After I got my Junior Ranger badge from the Grand Tetons, we headed back up to Yellowstone National Park! Mike decided to bike from Flagg Staff in Grand Teton to Grant Village in Yellowstone. We were originally going to meet at Old Faithful which is a little further than Grant Village. However, I drove there and was beyond overwhelmed with the sheer number of people and madness. It felt like I was at Disney World. So, I drove back a…
Dear Diary, I had a great couple weeks with Mom and Dad! We went to so many parks that I’ve taken poos in. I haven’t been able to always get out of the car because the bears are scared of me, but I’ve gotten lots of air-sniffing-out-the-window time! Mom also bought a chuck-it, and it’s my job to go get the ball. I’m really good at it and I take my job super seriously. We visited a friend named Luke…